Future of glass melting through the in-flight melting technique

The principle of the in-flight glass melting technique is reviewed and the future of the industrial glass melting is discussed based on the achievements of the on-going project on the development of the in-flight glass melting technology. In the in-flight melting, a granular batch is charged directly into a burner flame. The heat transfer from heating source to a glass batch is enhanced very much and the glass melting energy can be saved by more than 50% of the current glass tank furnaces. The innovative glass melting technique will trigger the revolution in glass production to push the glass industry into a new era. The technique can also reduce the melting furnace sizes, which will contribute to the reduction of furnace construction cost. The standard soda-lime-silica glass composition can be melted using only an oxy-gas firing burner. The oxy-gas burner can be combined with an are plasma torch to compose the hybrid heating in the new technique. The hybrid heating source can generate higher temperature than the burner heating and is applicable to the melting of high liquidus temperature glass forming systems. The feature will enable the production of the new functional glasses which are difficult to be fabricated by the currently popular Siemens type melting furnaces.